Jose Bautista calls MLB’s replay system “a joke”

“This whole replay thing has become a joke in my eyes. I think they should just ban it, they should just get rid of it, I don’t really understand the purpose of it, but getting the right call on the field is not the purpose. That’s pretty obvious and evident. I don’t know what kind of agenda the people that are doing the replays are on, what their plan is, what their purpose is, who they’re looking after. But obviously getting the right call on the field is not what they’re ...

MLB All-Star Game Snubs and Flubs

Ventcher spleen here!!

Minor League Baseball Team’s Fireworks Turn Into Stadium Fire

It’s not good when that happens.

Yankees designate Alfonso Soriano for assignment

As I said yesterday about Soriano… “but after kinda embarrassing Jeter today defensively, the end might be near.”

The Yankees have designated outfielder Alfonso Soriano for assignment, manager Joe Girardi announced. The team now has 10 days to trade, release or waive him.

Soriano, 38, has hit only .221/.244/.367 (68 OPS+) with six home runs in 238 plate appearances this season. He had been relegated to platoon duty with Ichiro Suzuki getting most of the starts in right field.

The Yankees ...

Rosenthal: Yankees acquire RHP McCarthy from D-backs

The New York Yankees have acquired right-hander Brandon McCarthy from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for left-hander Vidal Nuno, FOX Sports 1 Insider Ken Rosenthal reports.

The benefit for the Yankees here seems fairly obvious. I’m a bit more quizzical about the Diamondbacks’ perspective - maybe they were primarily motivated by a desire to unload McCarthy’s salary, and plan to stick Nuno into the LHRP slot just vacated by Thatcher?

Hitting just .201, Chris Davis is having an unprecedented slump

Jeez…I haven’t seen a Davis go this silent since Lillian Hall-Davis!

What’s wrong with Chris Davis?

The Orioles first baseman goes into Sunday’s game hitting just .201, floating just above the dubious Mendoza Line.

In Saturday’s doubleheader, Davis was 0-for-8 with six strikeouts and one walk, including one span over the two games in which he struck out in six consecutive plate appearances.

Over his past 10 games, dating back to the Orioles’ doubleheader against Tampa Bay on June 27 ...

Bill Madden: Mediocre Yankees and Mets just part of MLB’s offensively challenged, endless games

And scroll down to where Madden squeezes out a foundation deposit for the ‘77-’78 world championship Yankee teams.

Now that Alex Rodriguez has been revealed to have even been doping as a Yankee, and in particular his 2007 MVP season, should the title of Greatest Yankee Third Baseman revert to Graig Nettles? That would be the Graig Nettles who spent 11 seasons as a Yankee (as opposed to seven for recently plaqued Tino Martinez) and was a five-time All-Star, two-time Gold Glove winner, ...

MLB.COM: Eight Run Seventh Catapults Angels to Comeback Win

I was resigned to a loss tonight as Hector Santiago gave up a grand slam early and the Angels were down 5-2 in the 7th.  Then…..

David Freese, Albert Pujols and C.J. Cron all homered in the (seventh) inning, with Freese’s two-run shot trimming the deficit to one, Pujols’ two-run dinger putting the Angels up by one and Cron’s three-run blast supplying insurance runs.

For the Angels, the eight runs were a season high in one inning.

This season is starting to resemble 2002 in the AL ...

John Lackey on Nelson Cruz: ‘There are things I’d like to say, but I’m not going to’

Lackey: Unnatural Tissue.

Saturday night left a bitter and disgusting taste in the mouth of John Lackey.

It wasn’t so much the 10 hits, five runs and 120 pitches over just 5 2/3 innings. It wasn’t even taking the 7-4 loss to the Orioles on his record, dropping him to 9-6 on the season.

It was the man who did the most damage against him, including a laser beam homer to left in the fifth. John Lackey clearly hasn’t forgotten or forgiven Nelson Cruz.

“I’m not even going to comment on ...

OMNICHATTER 7-6-2014

The “Samardzija on a Good Team” OMNICHATTER

Hardball Times: The Royals and “Anti-Three True Outcomes”

There is a definite trend line/correlation between a team’s homer and walk percentages and its overall winning percentage. [...]

[The 2014 Royals HR+BB rate of 8.0% is] right there with the lowest total of any team over the past 40-plus years. You’ll also notice that few, if any, teams have been able to win even at a .550 clip without having a nine-percent homer-plus-walk rate. These Royals need only look at similarly walk and homer-challenged teams to realize their chances of a winning ...

Fangraphs: How Telling are a Teenager’s A-ball Stats?

I considered all 321 player seasons where a teenager logged at least 400 PA’s from 1995-2008. [...]

Stats alone can’t tell us everything, but there are definitely some obvious trends. Most notably, players who hit for power appear to be much more likely to play in the majors than those who don’t.  Completely ignoring strikeouts and walks, 70% players from the high power group made it to the bigs compared to 65% of players with average power and just 44% from the low power demographic. ...

Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez growing tired of losing in Colorado

...said Tulowitzki, reviewing the 17 years Helton spent as the face of a franchise that never won a division title. “He played in a couple postseason games and went to one World Series. But that’s not me. I want to be somewhere where there’s a chance to be in the playoffs every single year.”

With the expanded playoffs, that’s everywhere.

Diamondbacks send Joe Thatcher and Tony Campana to the Angels

The Diamondbacks’ are on the verge of making the first of what could be many trades this month, agreeing to a deal that will send left-hander Joe Thatcher and outfielder Tony Campana to the Los Angeles Angels.

In exchange, the Diamondbacks are receiving a pair of minor leaguers, right-handed reliever Joey Krehbiel and outfielder Zach Borenstein.

I know it’s not a trolling article about sabermetrics from an old fogey sportswriter, but we need to fill the front page with something, and I guess ...

Kepner: Hitters in M.L.B. This Season Have Struggled at Historic Rates

I lived through Jose Vidal once…ain’t doing it again.

As teams passed the 81-game midpoint of the season, they were averaging just 4.13 runs per game through Wednesday. If the average stays at that level through the end of the season, it will be the majors’ lowest mark since 1992. Strikeouts continue to rise; walks and home runs continue to decline; and the major league batting average, .251, is the lowest since 1972, the year before the creation of the designated hitter.

A stronger testing ...

Clayton Kershaw ups scoreless innings run to 36 in Dodgers’ win

The hard-throwing lefty nearly had no-hit stuff against Colorado again, allowing only two singles over eight innings as the Dodgers beat the Rockies 9-0 on Friday night.
What’s more, Kershaw (10-2) extended his scoreless streak to 36 innings before being replaced by a pinch hitter in the ninth. Kershaw bottled up the top-hitting team in the majors in nearly matching the no-hitter he threw against the Rockies on June 18 at Dodger Stadium. Kershaw struck out eight and walked one.

“You ...

7-5-2014 OMNICHATTER

The “Billy Beane and Theo Epstein wake up and make sure last night wasn’t a dream” OMNICHATTER

A’s acquire Jeff Samardzija, Jason Hammel from Cubs for Addison Russell

FOXSports.com’s Ken Rosenthal says the deal is done and that the A’s will get both Jeff Samardzija and Jason Hammel, giving up top shortstop prospect Addison Russell in return. He adds that other players and teams may be involved.

To get rid of marijuana, baseball has to get real. | SportsonEarth.com : Dirk Hayhurst Article

OK, detectives, who was it?

While I was in spring training with the … You know what, I’m not going to tell you. Too many potheads still in action there. Let’s just say that while I was in spring training with a certain organization, a group of guys on the team got robbed. They were all staying in a house together, splitting the rent through the course of the spring, their luxury rides all parked out front in a row, leaving at the same time every day. It wasn’t hard for the local criminal ...

Johnny Damon: ‘Ready’ for comeback

The three-time All-Star, two-time World Series champion and five-time .300 hitter is staying in shape, swinging the bat and eager to return to the majors. The 40-year-old Damon last played for Cleveland in 2012, but isn’t quite ready for retirement.

“When you feel you can still outhit at least half the league and you don’t get that call, it’s rough,” Damon told The Associated Press in a phone interview Friday. “The biggest reason to play is to have a chance to win. Obviously, 3,000 hits would ...

Loophole offers potential path for some minor league players to smoke way onto major league rosters - Yahoo Sports

Inside a minor league clubhouse this year, a player who had tested positive for marijuana a second time informed teammates of the 50-game suspension he would serve because of it. The player wasn’t concerned, according to a witness. He didn’t plan on curtailing his marijuana use, either.

“I’ll just smoke my way onto the 40-man,” he said.

In the annals of drug use, this might be a first: an employee trying to get a promotion by getting high.

Manny Ramirez, now player-coach for the Triple-A Iowa Cubs, encourages prospects to ‘follow the rules’ | cleveland.com

Manny not being Manny.

“Manny gave me as many problems as he gave anyone, probably besides (former Red Sox manager Terry Francona) in his time in Boston. He’s responsible for most of the gray hairs on my head. So it’s not something that we entered into lightly,” Epstein said.

I talked a lot to Manny, and he seemed like a completely different guy… he’s grown for the better. “But people do change. I talked a lot to Manny, and he seemed like a completely different guy… he’s grown for the better. ...

John McGrath: Acquiring Cano not the only move that helped turn the Mariners around | John McGrath | The News Tribune

Is he lucky or good?

A final stat: The combined 2014 salaries for Jones, Elias, Morrison, Beimel and Young add up to $4.85 million, or about $850,000 more than the average big league player earns per season.

Zduriencik has taken flak for trades that disappointed (starting pitcher Cliff Lee to the Rangers for a prospect package centered around Smoak) and signing expensive free agents who turned out to be worthless (Chone Figgins, $35 million for four years of bad vibes).

But Zduriencik’s ...

Odd challenge starts domino effect for A’s, Blue Jays

Here’s an interesting replay:

The incident happened in the top of the second inning with the bases loaded and one out. Blue Jays outfielder Anthony Gose hit a sharp grounder to first base. Nate Freiman fielded the ball cleanly and attempted to make a tag on baserunner Munenori Kawasaki before throwing home.

First-base umpire Vic Carapazza ruled that Kawasaki avoided the tag and immediately made the safe sign. That meant the force play at home was still in order and catcher Stephen Vogt recorded ...

The Sleeve That Could Save Baseball: Exclusive Look at New MLB Technology

This does look like a promising tool, although they would probably need to shrink down the chip a little more to get players to wear it during games.

Erardi: Billy Hamilton plays like greats he doesn’t remember

Where have you gone…Lefty Gomez?

Over the years, the same has been true with all the great center fielders, from Willie Mays to Jim Edmonds and Andruw Jones and the Reds’ Eric Davis.

But it goes back even farther than that.

I related an anecdote to Hamilton that dates back to 1937.

New York Yankees pitching great Lefty Gomez was talking to rookie center fielder Joe DiMaggio one day after a game the Yankees had lost on a deep drive that one-hopped the center field wall at Yankee Stadium.

...

OMNICHATTER for 7-4-2014

The “Stars And Stripes Forever” OMNICHATTER

ESPN: CC Sabathia has swelling in knee

CC Sabathia was aiming to return around the All-Star break, but after waking up with inflammation in his right knee on Thursday, that’s unlikely to happen.
Sabathia was roughed up in his rehab start for Double-A Trenton on Wednesday night, lasting 3 1/3 innings, allowing five runs (three earned) on five hits. He had another MRI on Thursday and has been shut down indefinitely, according to manager Joe Girardi…
“It’s not what you want,” Girardi said of Sabathia. “We were hopeful the swelling ...

Brosnan dies at 84

Before there was Ball Four, there was The Long Season, and Jim Brosnan.

Jewish Light: Here’s a Moneyball maven striking it rich for Athletics

As director of professional scouting and baseball development for the Oakland Athletics, Dan Feinstein scouts amateur players, evaluates the organization’s talent, is involved in contract negotiations and arbitration cases, ponders trades and analyzes potential free agent signees.

His varied portfolio is news to at least one of the team’s players.

“I don’t doubt that he does a lot, and has done a lot, for the organization, but I don’t know to what extent,” catcher Derek Norris ...